26 Chapter 26: Of Frustrating Beavers

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13 October 1991, Hogwarts

Harry didn't particularly care about Quidditch, but it seemed like a lot of special dispenses were given to the boy. No wonder the boy was so spoilt and entitled. What the hell had McGonagall been thinking when she gave him that position?

It had been almost two weeks since all the professors, for some reason, had chosen to partner him up with Hermione Granger, and Harry was starting to lose it. Don't get him wrong, it had nothing to do with her being a muggleborn Gryffindor. Yes, he had to admit that the girl was smart. Oh, she wasn't some prodigy like he imagined, just a lonely girl that spends every second of her life reading.

Honestly, Harry wouldn't care, really, if it wasn't for her attitude. She was just so inflexible with everything. She considered the textbooks to be gospel and did not even try to find an alternate way of solving a problem. It wasn't exactly a bad thing, since she was new to magic and experimenting with magic was dangerous, but the fact that she kept trying to boss Harry around was so frustrating. She kept watching him like a hawk and commented on every modification he tries to make to any spell.

One time during charms class, Harry was trying to modify the colour of the Periculum charm which sends red sparks from the wand. The Potter scion was able to turn the sparks into something resembling flares, and one where the sparks could be controlled by the wand, by combining certain elements of the Lumos Maxima spell.

The girl kept lecturing him on the proper wand movements of the spell, that he was doing it wrong and why it was wrong with a smug tone of superiority. She also seemed to develop some kind of rivalry with him; she tried to answer every possible question by the professors, while Harry rarely ever raised his hand. She tried to master spells before him, while he was trying to experiment with his magic. She was like a badgering beaver that wouldn't leave him alone and Harry was very close to blowing up on her.

He was definitely getting closer during the potions lesson. Snape had been grinning maliciously at him as he revealed his partnership with Granger. Potions were by far the worst place to stick him with Granger.

The girl quickly took command and asked him to prepare the ingredients while she brewed the potions, and Harry was too tired of arguing with her, having spent the previous night trying to modify the Contego shield which was a lot harder than it seemed. He did manage to add an extra layer to the shield and create the Contego Duo spell, but he was trying to turn the second layer into a repelling shield and be able to switch between them. It was the biggest project he had undertaken so far, and it was as hard as it sounded.

In this class, they were brewing a bruise healing potion. It wasn't that hard, considering how complex the subject could be. So, Harry prepared the ingredients as written on the board in silence with the possible arithmancy permutations of his new spell on his mind. Half an hour in, he finally started to look at the potion Granger was looking at.

It didn't look right. Oh, it had the right colour, but the melody was too soft, and out of tune. Harry looked at the instruction and saw that she had over stabilized the potion by adding too much flour. It was a perfectly acceptable error for a first year, where the potion recipes are often too stabilized to prevent accidents from happening, even if the effects are very reduced in their effectivity. To rectify it, Harry added a mild catalyst in the form of crushed unicorn horns that was already used as a main ingredient but was dissolved in the acid from before.

The moment Harry put the pinch of unicorn horn, the potion didn't change colour, but Harry could feel the difference in its song.

Happy with his work, Harry returned to dicing a few ingredients but was interrupted by a shrilly voice, "What do you think you were doing?"

The young Slytherin answered her with a bored tone, "I'm cutting the ingredients."

"What did you put in the potion?"

Choosing not to convince her that it was possible to modify a potion, "I don't know what you're talking about."

The girl started to get redder and redder, "I saw you put something in the potion!"

Harry shrugged, "Doesn't ring a bell."

"You're trying to ruin my grades, aren't you? Just because I'm better and I answer more questions in class, and I have a better potions grade than you. You're trying to ruin my grade so that you be better overall."

Seriously, what was that girl talking about? Harry didn't even know what her grades were, only that Snape seemed insistent on giving him no grade over Exceeds Expectations not that he cared. If the man wanted to be petty, then let him. As far as he was concerned, only the OWL and NEWT grades mattered, and they wouldn't be given by a childish teacher with a grudge.

Of course, the Batman wannabe had to sneak on them, "What is this ruckus, Miss Granger?"

Harry wanted to groan, he wanted nothing more than go back to the common room and just take a nap, "Potter sabotaged my potion, professor."

The greasy haired professor turned to Harry, "And what do you have to say about that?"

"Well, considering it's both our potion, I'm not stupid enough to ruin my own work purposefully. And does it even look ruined?"

The man looked at the potion and then turned back to give Harry an unreadable look, "You added powdered unicorn horn as a catalyst."

Harry shrugged, "the potion was over stabilized. A pinch of unicorn horn would have solved that, and the potion would still be safe enough to handle. I would have added mint leaves to restabilize it after the next reaction."

The potion master's eyebrow raised, "Were my instructions unclear enough for you to follow, Potter?"

"They are perfectly fine, but I'm not the one who added too much flour in the first place," Harry responded while looking at Granger.

The man seemed to glare at the girl before speaking up, "Five points from Gryffindor for causing a scene for no reason."

He then turned and left to berate Seamus Finnigan for almost making his potion explode. Harry turned to continue his work and saw his partner almost in tears, "What is it?"

"How do you know all that? Did you have magic lessons before attending like Neville?" she demanded.

Huh, interesting. The boy who lived ended up having magic lessons before Hogwarts. He couldn't have been training with a wand since his magic would have been too chaotic before his eleventh birthday to be handled by a wand. He definitely wasn't taking potion lessons, considering how abysmal he was in it. It must have been theory lessons or toy wands that don't really cast magic but help train wand movements and incantations. It would explain how the Longbottom scion was learning hexes and pranking spells so quickly.

"I like to read," Harry said.

"Yes, I see you in the library. But I'm also reading, why don't I know the things you do?"

"You read a lot more than I do, at least in terms of library books. But the books I choose are simply better. I read when something interests me, or there's something I want to try out. Reading too much is as likely to distract you from the useful parts. Quantity has a quality of its own, but it's not enough to bridge the gap if you physically can't read enough books."

The girl stopped crying and Harry simply took over the potion and put the hellebore acid in, then a minute later the mint leaves he had saved up. The leaves dissolved and he started stirring the ingredients.

The bushy haired Gryffindor was still confused, "I don't understand."

"Look, you're reading around twice the amount I do. But one in every five books you read is actually useful for your education. You either choose books that are beyond your comprehension, or you just choose books that don't contain any useful information. That difference makes my time reading much more valuable than yours. It's not an insult, it's fact. Don't make it a competition, look at what makes you better and focus on it. It's how you learn. What books don't tell you is that magic is an adventure that you undertake. Restricting yourself is a very bad habit to have." Harry explained.

The girl gave him a slight smile, "Thank you. You're not so bad, Potter."

"You do realize this is the longest conversation we ever had. What impression did you have of me, before?"

"I don't know. Cold, I guess. You should hear what Neville and Ron keep saying about you."

Harry groaned, "We only talked to each other twice in my life, and they attacked me every time. Just because I'm not willing to bow down and kiss the feet of the boy who lived, doesn't mean I'm some monster. It just means that I have some dignity."

The rest of the class was relatively peaceful. At least Granger had stopped glaring at me all the time for no reason. When it was over, Harry submitted a vial of his potion and left the room. He was joined by his friends, but unfortunately, also by Malfoy, "So, you're getting along with the Mudblood, Potter."

Harry simply stopped and looked Draco in the eye while releasing his presence a bit, "What did I say about that word, Draco?"

The blonde paled, "I'm sorry, muggleborn."

Harry stopped scaring the boy and answered, "I needed to, or we would have ended up killing each other in the middle of our classes. She's a bit of a stickler for the rules. I could see myself getting along with her if she relaxed for a bit."

Daphne snorted, "Like that's going to happen."

"Never say never, Daph. Never say never." Harry said with an amused glint in his eyes.

"Stop calling me that, Harry," she yelled back while chasing him.

The Potter scion had tried to make a nickname for her. He expected the girl to disapprove. Daphne was raised like an aristocrat, with a rather large focus on nobility and elegance. She didn't really approve of nicknames. Just calling her by her first name was already proof that she liked him. But the moment he tried out her nickname, she practically ran at him snarling and oddly blushing. She chased him around the castle until they were both tired.

Honestly, Harry liked having friends. It was odd, not having to work by himself all the time. He had obligations, like making sure that they ate their meals together, or him helping the others with their spell work, or them helping him by taking extra books from the library for him to read. The was also the protection of numbers. People didn't try to target him or any of his friends because they rarely instigated anything.

On that side, things were even starting to settle down. The Professors were starting to severely punish the older students that get involved in the rivalry. The Weasley Twins had apparently been in tears as McGonagall confiscated all their ingredients and prank items after they dismissed her warnings. They honestly looked pitiful for the days afterwards.

As for the Gryffindor first years, with Longbottom being too busy with his Quidditch position, they stopped instigating things, which made Malfoy feel like he had won. It was sad that he didn't know that it was all probably designed by the teachers to stop Hogwarts from turning into a battleground. Still, things were starting to calm down, and Hogwarts was beginning to turn into a normal school.

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